Coonoor V

The Nilgiri Mountain Railway, familiarly known as the toy train, travels from Mettupalayam on the plains up to Ooty - a four-hour journey - and back every day. There are several websites with pictures and information about this train, which has just been declared a UNESCO world heritage site - here and here and here and here. One day we picked up the train at Coonoor and rode Ooty, a one-hour trip. My notes aren't very interesting, and my photographs are blurry. It was lovely, though - slow enough so that cows could saunter across the track in front of us without fear -- about 10 kph. A couple of tunnels, many wonderful views. A hoopoe flew across in a flash of black / brown / white.

We had lunch at the Savoy, in Ooty. I browsed through an old book - Ootacamund: A History - while we waited for lunch. I read about the second western 'discovery' of Ooty - the first, brief encounter, was in 1602, but this was the one that led to British settlements in the Nilgiris: in 1818, two English civilians reached Ooty - they might have been pursuing "a poligar who had been misconducting himself... they found the man they were in search of, in a hut. He was exceedingly polite in offering refreshments to the gentlemen, and pretending to go for some milk, took the opportunity of making good his retreat." In pursuing him they discovered the excellent climate, etc.

colonial kitsch: tripods of lances (for pig-sticking?)
hung with pith helmets

After lunch we went to look at a house that was for sale. We have a recurring fantasy about buying a second house here, or even resettling in the hills somewhere - but we haven't been sure enough to go through with it. The house was up a steep driveway - most of the property was steeply sloped and forested. It was charming on the outside; but we peered through the windows and found it very old-fashioned, rudimentary. There was an outbuilding for the caretaker and his family, a garage and, slightly up a hill, a small cottage.

The caretaker's wife, Mageshwari, showed us around. She was tiny, barefooted, slim, with a beautiful face, a sweet smile, very polite - we felt that we could almost buy the house in order to have her work for us. In the end we felt that the house would have to be gutted and modernised, and it seemed too big a project for us to take on. But the next day I felt a little guilty - austerity is good? the house looked cold because it was empty? Mageshwari's delicate bare feet, while I shivered in my sweater.


Morning: Crows squabble on and nibble the grass, a monkey steals a sugar packet from someone's room.


At the gate, the watchman chats with a sweeper in sari and brown sweater. She laughs.

A woman walks by with two bounding dogs.

A goods carrier grinds down the road.

Cloudy, with a very light drizzle.


I've made this guy look cheerful, when actually he's pensive and moth-eaten and sad.

Lunch: a child bangs his spoon on a table. The parents are unconcerned. Finally a waiter goes over and tells the child, "Don't! If you do that, monkeys will come."


This is a cubist goat, because I kept sketching it, even as it moved

The goats like to stroll across the road just as a truck comes barrelling down it, causing the truck to come to a halt. The woman who appears to be the goatherd says to them "Where are you going?" but idly, as if it is a casual conversation.

Honey

Along with some Ayurvedic medicine that we bought yesterday, a bottle of honey was thrown in for free. The Tamil word for honey is then. I imagine that it's a very ancient word: my reasoning may be fallacious, but most Tamil words are not so short; and the one-syllable words that I know name simple things: aal = man; pen = woman; man = earth; kal = stone; thee = fire; neer = water.

But I don't think of the words' age when I use these others. There's something about honey, its thick goldenness, the resonance of the word then in my head, like a soft bell.

Coonoor IV

Every bit of land that can be farmed, is -- mostly with tea. Only rocky outcroppings and the steepest slopes are forested.


An elderly lady, staying with her children in America: "In America, nothing has any taste - fruits, vegetables, even chicken. They grow everything with chemicals. I come here, and I can taste everything."


Sunday morning, 8:30: I walked behind All Saints Church and down Figure of Eight Road. All the shops were closed -- most of them connected to the tea industry. A group of ten young men trooped into a shopfront marked BAR, then immediately backed out again and sat on the curb laughing, to wait (I assume) for 9:00 a.m. opening time.

Birds: bulbuls, sparrows, flowerpeckers, pigeons, mynahs, seven rishis

What soft names: Coonoor. Ooty. A signboard for Oopoottil Trading Co.


We visited Beulah Farm, which grows herbs and fruits, and sells its own fruit jam. The road went up and up, over a steep hump, and then down, down down, until R asked if we were going to end up in Mettupalayam, on the plain. When we reached the place I went in alone; R stayed in the car, not interested. It was Sunday, and a small village church nearby - gaudy, decked with pennants - was broadcasting loud recorded hymns.

I walked down a flight of steps to a small house, or rather a series of huts, I think - it was hard to make it out - facing a very small open area of dirt. In that area were several birdhouses crowded with gorgeous white fantail pigeons, who perched there or hopped down to walk around on the ground; a couple of muscovy ducks; a sleepy dog.

The owner was Eapen Jacob, 81 years old, a Syrian Christian from Kerala -- tall, thin, with a long pale face, thin white hair, smiling. Or rather, "God is the owner - I'm only in charge." E welcomed me, and showed me around the rows of herbs, plucked sprigs for me - thyme, chives, lemon balm, lad's-love. There was rhubarb, and strawberries, and some fruit trees, on about 2 acres of land. He doesn't use pesticides, or chemical fertilisers; he keeps a few bees to pollinate the flowers. He told me twice that 'Beulah' means god's gift, and that he treats it as such. He behaved as though I were a welcome guest, not an idle tourist seeking diversion.

I was impressed with his sincerity and openness. I felt that he should meet R, so I said that I would call him in. E immediately went with me to invite him. We sat down in one of the small rooms and chatted. Then E said something about God - that everything is in His hands, perhaps. R said that there is no god, or if there is, he's absconding. E became very interested, and the two of them got into an intense conversation. I sat on the doorstep, sketching and listening.


Several children stopped to look at what I was drawing. I asked the dog's name - Jimmy. They laughed to see that I had drawn him, and that I wrote his name over the drawing.

E and R talked for about an hour, E insisting that there must be an intelligence behind the universe - but mildly. He paid close attention to R's arguments, in spite of their opposition to his own beliefs. He was looking for answers. And he was a little confused, because he was old.

Eventually we had to go. I bought some jam: Rhubarb, rhubarb-strawberry, orange marmalade; and E gave me plants as a gift to take back: chives, thyme, lads-love, spearmint. He was reluctant to take money for the jam - later, at the hotel, someone told me, "Eapen doesn't care for money - when you pay him for his jams he doesn't even take the money with his right hand. He takes it in his left hand and just throws it aside."

As he walked us back to the car, E was emotional, hugged R, said that he was an exceptional person. We all had tears in our eyes. I'm not explaining properly why he impressed me so much. I think he seemed to be a kind of holy innocent, with his beliefs, and his herbs, and his birds…

I said to him, inanely, "You seem to be a happy man." He opened his eyes wide in surprise, and said, "No! I have a question mark rising behind my head, not an exclamation mark - I am searching in the wilderness."

But R was making him laugh, too - he had a sense of humour. As R was getting in the car he said, "You have touched my heart. It is rare to meet such a good and decent person. I feel sorry for you - you need someone to protect you. Good luck." Then when we sat in the car, E tapped on R's window. When R opened it he said, grinning, "You mean you do believe in something? There is such a thing as luck?" R said, "No! You caught me! As soon as I said it I realised it was a mistake. I was hoping you hadn't heard me, but you did - it was the only lie of the day." Then they clasped hands, and we drove away.

Coonoor III

All Saints Church, Coonoor

I walked to the church, next door to the hotel. Buff-coloured stucco and a red-tiled roof. A monkey sat on the churchyard wall:

Its mouth turns up, but it is not smiling

I had just begun to draw a whole line of monkeys sitting on another wall, when the church sexton rode up on a motorcycle and introduced himself. He told me that he and his father had recently cleaned all the graves, which I had already noticed: all the pretty moss and lichen were gone.

SACRED TO THE BELOVED MEMORY OF
GEORGE HODSON
WHO FELL ASLEEP ON THE 26 OF OCTOBER 1866
AGED 32 YEARS. . .

The cemetery is so quiet, green and brown, built on uneven, sloped ground, the stones not in neat rows. The trees are not willows -- they are some kind of fir - but they 'weep,' drooping over the graves.

At dinner, from the next table: "He knows which side of the bread to butter properly."

Coonoor II

(When I began writing about Coonoor, someone said, But I thought you were going to Ooty. So, to clarify, Ooty is the District Headquarters of Nilgiri District - like an American county seat - and Coonoor is a smaller, nearby town.)

I got up at 8:00 and went for a walk. The weather was variable, like spring: cool, breezy, then washed with warm sunlight, then with dark shadows. Tried to look hard at everything, picked up leaves and cones to draw. Later, after lots of breakfast, we sat at a white wrought-iron table on the lawn, and I painted what I had collected.


At dinner I warmed my hands around a hot toddy. I was busy pretending that it was colder than it actually was, with the fire every night and the hot water bottles and all. A piano player stumbled through old Hindi film songs in an almost-empty dining room (because the 'season' was over). At another table the waiter asked someone, "You are full vegetarian?" and she answered, "Not even mushrooms!"


The next day, after breakfast, the really, really good Chef Ramalingam showed me his herb garden: mint, lemongrass, basil, thyme, tarragon, rosemary, celery. I admired all of them and asked if he grew parsley. He said, "Parsley, monkeys take it. Monkeys my enemy."

Then we sat outside again, and two monkeys passed by, large and small, and paused, but not long enough for me to draw them properly. Growling and coughing. Then one male, three females with babies clinging under their bellies.

R watched the young Indian tennis player Sania Mirza lose in the second round of Wimbledon -- on the national TV channel, Doordarshan, with commentary in Chinese -- why?? I think that if Doordarshan ever modernised we'd miss its reliable weirdness. But not very much.

The day is punctuated by sirens from the tea gardens: the beginning and end of the work day, and the lunch break. Then there is the whistle and the chuff ... chuff ... of the so-called toy train, coming up from Mettupalayam on the plains to Ooty. And the grinding of trucks labouring up the hills, loaded with petrol; firewood; sacks of tea; everything that from outside comes by truck up the hairpin roads.


I stood looking up at a huge fir tree and tried to see it as light and shadow, but each mass of light had its own shadows. I would have to draw every needle. Then it stopped looking like a tree at all. Shadows within shadows.

Coonoor I

Overheard on the plane: "You have to look at the details, and only then you understand what life is. The basic principal, like, goes for a toss."


Coimbatore: We stepped out of the plane into light sprinkles of rain - I'd forgotten that expression: "It's sprinkling." Grey clouds, breeze. Hills rose in the distance, behind coconut groves.


A crucifix was wrapped around the car's rear-view mirror. On the bumpy stretches the wooden beads clacked slightly against the glass, as if raindrops were spattering on the windshield.


1:55 p.m., Mettupalayam; 2:10, "GHAT SECTION BEGINS" - a series of hairpin curves heading up into the hills; 3:00 arrival in Coonoor.

from the ghat road to Coonoor

We stayed at the Taj Garden Retreat in Coonoor. It was built in the mid-nineteenth century as a priory for the All Saints Church next door, and converted to a hotel in 1908. Bits and pieces have been added on ever since.


We had an enormous suite: a foyer big enough for a sofa and chairs; a living area with creaky wooden floors (the first wooden floors I have walked on for many years) and a fireplace; a bedroom; a smaller bedroom; a bathroom larger than the second bedroom. All of it was furnished with what looked like gleanings from someone's attic -- hill station style.

We ordered tea and sandwiches, and sat at a low table in the foyer to eat them. We kept the door open to let the cool damp air - it was drizzling lightly - inside. There was a basket of fruit on the table. I looked out the window and saw a furry brown monkey squatting on the roof of a nearby building. I said, "Look - a monkey!" Before R could even reply, if he had planned to, the monkey was inside. It was the size of a small dog. I was sitting on the floor; it was almost at my eye-level. I shouted, "No!", but it hardly glanced at me. In a flash it went to the fruit basket, grabbed a bunch of bananas, and was gone.

After dinner, a fire in the fireplace, made of "jungle wood."


In the night, the lights went out just as we were getting into bed. I thought I touched a stranger's warm leg there, and recoiled, but it was

Back

We stepped out of the plane into the blast of a hair dryer. At home, a concrete lined moat two feet wide ran the length of the street, just outside the gate. Our neighbours, forewarned, had moved their cars out and across the street -- only ours are trapped inside. The taxi had to stop on the road, and we entered with our suitcases over two wooden planks. To add insult to injury, a big heap of earth had been dumped exactly in front of the gate.

Inside, Lakshmi swept up small heaps of what I thought was red dust from the roadwork; but they were piles of dead ants. The switchplate into which the washing machine was plugged wasn't working; when the electrician came and opened it up, it was stuffed with ants too.

And so we settle again into Summer. I will develop my photographs and scan my sketches. Then I will write about our sojourn in Spring, and the people we met there.

Coonoor bouquet

Out of Station

We're going up to the hills, from whence cometh the promise of cool air and rain.

I wrote several posts about the area where I'm going last year (actually they're all part of one big file, the archives for May 2004):

Ooty I
Ooty II
Ooty III
Ooty IV

Here's a picture Ramesh took, of a skyline in Munnar -- but it's very characteristic of the Nilgiris in general, with their soft, rounded hills, topped with feathery trees:

Hot

It's been 104F in the shade for the last several days, and now is the time chosen by the Corporation (the city government) to dig up our road for, I think, laying fibre optic cables. I pity the diggers - it's all done by hand, and the men wear almost nothing, and wrap cloth around their heads in makeshift turbans, to shield them from the sun.

As is usual when they dig up the road, they broke our sewage pipe. I called the Sewage Board, and they came and patched it with some cement and said, If you give us money we'll replace the broken pipe, otherwise you'll have trouble when our patching wears off.

Then the telephone repairman came to the door and said, Because of the digging your telephone line has been cut. I said, No it hasn't, I was just using it. He said, Just try and see. And of course, the lines were all dead. He went away and then came back in one minute and said, I've repaired the lines. And of course, they were all working. So he said, Give me money for the emergency repair. (All these people are government employees and earn salaries, in case it is not evident.) I gave him Rs. 20 - couldn't help it. So he said, Five of us worked on the line. So I gave him another Rs. 30. What to do?

Because it's so hot, everyone who can is using their air conditioners, so we're having power failures. And just as I was writing that, the power went off. Luckily we have the generator, but I have to run back and forth to the kitchen to turn it on and off, and pull the heavy changeover switch. (That's whining, actually -- we're very fortunate to have it.)

Whenever I take off my watch I find that the leather strap has left a stain on my wrist, because of the sweat.

I think I was going to say something more positive than this, but I've forgotten. It's too hot to think.

Tigertruck

He's a very worldweary creature, isn't he? Endangered and resigned to it. Gazing out from the back of a water lorry.

Waiting for the Monsoon

The moonsoon arrived late in Kerala, began to spread out over the Subcontinent, and then stalled. Sweltering Chennai waits stoically for the break in temperature it will bring. This picture is of Calcutta (only Calcutta / Kolkata policement wear white uniforms and white helmets) - from yesterday's The Hindu. It was so evocative to me of the way people in a monsoon-dependent country feel, when the rains come.

the first major downpour of the monsoon season
in Kolkata - PTI photo

Beautiful Stuff

The art of Gail Rieke.

"Gail Rieke orchestrates some of the most sensitive collage works being done today. Their uniqueness has to do with the exquisite internal harmonies she discovers among these natural and man-made materials, and the way she balances the very specific nature of each piece with its potential for poetic meaning..." William Peterson, editor of Artspace Magazine

I especially love the travel journals, beginning with a suitcase wall, and proceeding to Seekers of Rust: travel journal in wicker suitcase, Southern Rural Japan, 2003.

I love things that are hidden away, that you have to unwrap - like glimpses of inner courtyards through doors just barely ajar. Like this work.

Tomato Rice

Some Parsi friends came home for dinner last night, bearing a big pot of tomato rice. I love this dish - with some yoghurt on the side it can be a meal in itself. In this case we also had baingain bharta (eggplant); corn with potatoes, seasoned with sambar masala; kachumbar (chopped tomatoes/ onions/ chillies) and apalam (fried dal wafers). And because it's still mango season, we finished with aam ras (mango puree seasoned with ginger powder). {sigh of happy exhaustion} … and here's the recipe, as written down by my friend:

Tomato Rice

Rice - 1 cup
Tomatoes, skinned & finely chopped - 1/2 to 3/4 kg
Onions, chopped - 4 large
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp.
Ginger-garlic, finely chopped - 1 tsp. each
Chillie powder - 1/2 tsp.
cumin seeds - 1 tsp.
turmeric powder - 1 tsp.
Green chillies, chopped fine - 2 to 3
Cloves - 4
Cardamom - 4
Cinnamon - 3 sticks
Sugar - 2 to 3 tsp
Salt to taste
Bay leaf - 2 to 3
Curry leaves - one small sprig
Coriander leaves, chopped - 1/2 cup
Mint leaves, chopped - 1/2 cup
coriander-cumin powder - 1 tsp.
Oil for frying

In a thick pan heat the oil, add mustard and cumin seeds, fry till they pop. Add the cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, chopped onions, ginger & garlic, and fry till light golden brown. Add curry leaves and green chilies. Fry for a minute or two. Add tomatoes, coriander and mint, chillie powder, haldi, sugar, coriander-cumin powder, bay leaf and salt. When all is mixed well, cover and cook for 10 minutes. Remove the lid and cook till almost dry.

Boil the rice till fluffy, drain. Add the tomato mixture a little at a time till all is absorbed in the rice. Line an ovenproof dish with butter or ghee, add rice. Let the tomato rice stand for 2 to 3 hours, reheat before eating.

Boom

There is a real estate boom going on in Chennai. People dream of selling their houses for large amounts to IT companies. And builders are buying land to make more and more expensive apartments for the enjoyers of the new wealth. Brokers have started turning up at our door, and last week a well-known builder offered us a large sum for our house. Or rather, for the land, so that he could tear the house down and put an apartment block in its place. Each apartment would cost Rs. 80 lakhs-1 crore (8-10 million); a sum which is not unusual for Mumbai, but quite a lot for Chennai.

We were tempted, mainly because the house is too big for the two of us. It's something of a white elephant: unusual and with its own beauty, but hard to maintain. We began talking about where we might like to relocate -- within Chennai? to Bangalore? Ooty? Even abroad?

But neither of us really wants to go through with it. Last night I had a dream:

A film star from the seventies - a one-film wonder named Kumar Gaurav - was exerting great pressure on me to marry him. (I think he was actually a character named Arman from a current TV serial, but in the dream it was a young KG, looking sad.) I got swept up in the potential excitement of it, and agreed, and KG put a diamond ring on my finger, and went away. Another film star, Suneil Shetty, rode by on a motorcycle and I showed him the ring. He waved and called out, "You did a good thing!" But I felt that the whole thing was a disaster - the diamond was small and not all that sparkly, and KG was already married and had a family, and maybe wasn't a good person, and now I couldn't even remember his name!!

I don't think we're going to sell our house.

part of our atrium, from upstairs - the pond is empty because we are still fighting the Invasion of the Snails

Meanwhile, the crows in the garden are having their own real estate boom: flying back and forth with twigs in their beaks, constructing awkward-looking but strong penthouses. Most of them seem to be directly above the badminton court, which is continually being covered with stray bits of construction material, along with their occupants' droppings. They, at least, have no doubt at all about what they are doing.

HappenStance

My poetry friend Helena Nelson has started a new venture to publish poetry chapbooks; and a magazine, Sphinx: A Magazine for Poetry People. The website is www.happenstancepress.com. I rushed over there as soon as I heard, and bought Helena's chapbook, Unsuitable Poems, and also subscribed to the first two issues of Sphinx. Support clever, talented and hardworking poets! Go there and do the same!

Here's one of my favourite poems from Unsuitable Poems, reprinted by permission from the author:

Poetry Virgin

The Onboard Customer Service Team
welcomes you to this poem.
There is a pause provided at the end of most lines
and at the end of every stanza.
We apologise for the absence of rhymes.

A quiet stanza is situated near the rear of the poem
for readers who do not like howling.
Passengers should familiarise themselves
with the safety exits
and the lay-out of the poem.

Due to problems with signalling devices
the message of the poem has been somewhat delayed.
We apologise for the delay
but recommend the scenic views from stanza four
and the excellent wordplay in the buffet.

The Customer Service Team wishes to assure travellers
that this poem is equipped with the latest enjambement
and is not a sonnet of the Petrarchan variety.
If you have any cause for discomfort,
write, please, to the Poem Mistress at Barking.

the poem is due to arrive at its destination
in approximately one

minute.

Please

make sure you take all your belongings with you
and nothing that does not belong to you.
thank you for travelling Poetry Virgin.

Poet's Choice

I really like the Poet's Choice in the Washington Post Book Review every Sunday. The poems are currently being presented by Robert Pinsky; they are always worth reading. I'm going to post last Sunday's article here because I love the poems, and because I don't know how long they are going to stay up:

Poet's Choice

By Robert Pinsky
Sunday, June 5, 2005

A great parody is a great tribute: To be considered worth imitating and worth laughing at is a compliment. Moreover, to be truly seen and understood is close to the pinnacle for a work of art, and no critical essay can see and understand as deeply as the best parodies.

There's an additional thrill for the reader if the object being parodied has not seemed ridiculous -- until the parody wakens the sleepy perception that, yes, even a charming and indelible work may have its ridiculous aspects. Here is a fine and famous poem by William Carlos Williams (1893-1963):

This Is Just to Say

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

Williams's insouciance and offhand apology, his delight in his own capricious taste, and, underlying all of that, a certain male, maybe even professional, assurance -- these qualities do not diminish the poem. Still, it is bracing to notice them here and in Williams's other work. The late Kenneth Koch (1925-2002) leads us, hilariously, to take such notice. Somehow, substituting long lines for short ones, while keeping some of the rhythms, is another satisfying part of the joke:

Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams

1

I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.

I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do and its wooden beams were so inviting.

2

We laughed at the hollyhocks together

and then sprayed them with lye.

Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

3

I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next ten years.

The man who asked for it was shabby

and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

4

Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.

Forgive me. I was clumsy, and

I wanted you here in the wards, where I am a doctor.

Sunday Morning

I had to drive out to West Mambalam early on Sunday morning.

I passed a long queue of people waiting to get into a temple on Venkatanarayan Road.

I had to go up to Panagal Park and turn left on Usman Road. On a weekday this area is chaotic, crammed: it is a major shopping area for silk saris and gold jewellry, among other things. More to the point for me, it was at one time the only place one could buy ‘exotic’ vegetables like brussels sprouts, broccoli, leeks, parsley, lettuce, mushrooms. All these vegetables are much more widely available now, and the Panagal Park vegetable market has shrunk drastically.

I’ve been as far as Usman Road before, but this time I turned for the first time onto Madley Street, heading to West Mambalam. When I first arrived here there weren’t any decent maps – there was a feeling that maps could be useful to one’s enemies, I think. Now I swear by my Eicher street map. I plot my route carefully, and keep it on the car seat. I like the variety of names – Hindu, Muslim, English -- I assume that Madley Street is named after some former British notable.

As I emerged from the underpass beneath the railroad tracks, the streets became narrow and winding, of variable width; like the village lanes they must have been. I had a hard time finding a place wide enough to park in. I started walking back toward the main road. Inside a tiny front yard, a man with a Muslim’s white cloth cap and a bicycle was holding a pair of scales on which reposed a silver fish, which ended in a neat pink ellipse where its head had been. A man and his wife scrutinised the fish, and another which lay on a cloth on the ground, and discussed them with the fishmonger.

Suddenly a car alarm started yelping. I turned back, and it was my car. A bunch of small children had clustered around it – it was the only one on the street. They were slapping it, delighted with the sound. I turned it off with the remote, but again they began to slap, each slap resulting in a yelp. A man came out of the house in front of which I’d parked – bare chested, with a brahmin’s thread across his chest, and wearing a white veshti. I was apologetic. I said, “If the children hit the car, the alarm will go off.” He shooed them away, and I went on, hoping that they would keep away until I returned.

On the way back I wanted to stop at Mansukh, to buy the Gujarati Sunday morning specialities: jalebi and gatia - which we never eat ordinarily, it's about the last thing I want for breakfast - but I got distracted by the Cine Dancers Association building, and missed the turn.

These were the excitements of Sunday morning.

Fruits of the hot season

A post to my sketchblog: Scenes From A Dentist.

Some Things About Coconuts

On the 25th we paid a man Rs. 20 per tree to harvest and clean our three coconut trees. He cut down 84 coconuts, leaving the ones that are not ripe yet. Half of the 84 had dried, but we can use one or two of them at least for recipes like bisibele bhat that call for dried coconut.

From the balance of the ripe fruits, the kaaikkaaran (vegetable vendor) has agreed to buy as many as we want to sell for Rs. 3.50 each. That means we’ll make…. Um… Well, Mary knows about these things. She's the one who hired the harvester, who shinnied up the trunk with a machete; and negotiated with the kaaikkaaran. If it were up to me I’d forget, and let them rot in the trees.

After we’ve made our fortunes, we’ll use the rest for chutney, which we eat several times a week.

The lower branches droop. Above them, a crown of newer branches grows upward. The clusters of nuts (pale yellow-green, the unripe ones) are surrounded by yellowish, crooked spikes.

The trunk is more grey than brown. Each segment of the trunk is as if stacked on another; each is slightly smaller than the one before. Where the trunk meets the ground it frays out, and extends a few worm-like roots above the soil. The gaps between the sections have more dots than lines. They look like stretch-marks.

Four ways to look at a coconut palm

Whew

I have been having so many problems with my computer - it's been crashing and crashing, and I'm feeling quite flattened. I'm still not completely out of the woods yet (not a felicitous mixture of metaphors), but hoping for the best.

After all, things can't be all bad, as long as our Chief Minister, Miss J. Jayalalitha, rules us under the watchful sunglasses of her political mentor, the late M. G. Ramachandran.

Daal Mein Kuchh Kaala Hai

The title is a Hindi colloquialism. It means, literally, There's something black in the lentils; and figuratively, There's something fishy going on. There's a small piece on this expression at Dick & Garlick.

So last night at dinner, our dal was black urad, which is round and black, like smooth peppercorns, only slightly smaller. I didn't eat it, because I'm not an urad fan, but Ramesh loves it. And he bit down on something, and was in terrible pain, and we're waiting till morning to see if he has cracked a tooth. We went through the cooked dal and found 7 of them: small black spherical stones, all exactly uniform, and exactly blending in with the dal. We had fallen victim to one of the banes of this country: food adulteration.

Rice contains white stones; pepper and, we have now discovered, black urad contains black stones. Everything has to be cleaned carefully before using, but these stones were so perfectly shaped that they had escaped Mary's eyes. There are said to be machines for milling stones to the correct size for mixing with dal or rice. Powdered spices may contain anything. Until the recent past we never bought anything powdered; we bought the whole spices and ground our own.

It's not just food. A number of years ago, someone told Ramesh that he wanted to purchase a machine for shredding the clear plastic bags that milk comes in, so that he could mix them with paraffin to make the cheap candles that used to be the only ones available. When the candles burn they sputter, because of the adulteration.

The cheaper grades of dal and rice and sugar and spices are more adulterated - what is sold at the ration shops for the poor, for example. So they suffer more, as usual.

I don't usually write about the downsides of life here -- it seems condescending, too easy. As if I don't know that human beings are flawed everywhere, not just here. But I'm pretty upset at the moment. Daal mein kuchh kaala hai indeed.

Threat Counterthreat

I've added another threat exchange from Hindi movies to my collection. This one is from Dhoom:

The policeman is trying to find the thief behind a series of robberies. The thief telephones the policeman to taunt him.

Thief: I'll walk right up to you and you won't even recognise me!

Policeman: Meet me once and you won't be worth recognising!

Demolition Day 4

I don't know how they are to work or be incarcerated in, but from the outside Chennai's old police stations are among the more charming features of the city. Now a number of them will be torn down as part of a modernisation drive. There's an article about them in The Hindu: Demolition Row. The article includes lists of stations to go, and those that will stay -- but it doesn't mention the one on Royapettah High Road, one of my favourites.

This picture of a typical station, by R. Ragu, accompanies the article. The woman in front of the station is wearing a sari in the traditional Tamil brahmin style, which is slowly dying out:

Two Things

Abraham dropped by again yesterday. He has somehow decided that we, like him, should sell our house to a computer company for a fabulous price. He even brought a broker with him. We aren't interested in selling, so it was a waste -- though he did drop in one sentence which made my eyes pop: "... you know his third wife ran away with a mrdangam player (a drummer)... "

She was clearly unhappy, but a mrdangam player! Gracious!


Hindi movie on TV, policeman to criminal: "If only you were my brother, I would be able to show you that you are on the wrong path."

Oh for God's sake, he is your brother! Don't you know that? Whenever anyone says, "I feel as though you were my relative," he / she is your relative. Especially if one of you is rich and the other poor, or one is a policeman and the other a criminal. Don't you know anything about Hindi movies??

From the Onion (because I was morosely sipping tea when I read it):

National Poetry Month Raises Awareness Of Poetry Prevention

NEW YORK—This month marks the 10th National Poetry Month, a campaign created in 1996 to raise public awareness of the growing problem of poetry. "We must stop this scourge before more lives are exposed to poetry," said Dr. John Nieman of the American Poetry Prevention Society at a Monday fundraising luncheon. "It doesn't just affect women. Young people, particularly morose high-school and college students, are very susceptible to this terrible affliction. It is imperative that we eradicate poetry now, before more rainy afternoons are lost to it." Nieman said some early signs of poetry infection include increased self-absorption and tea consumption.

An Unexpected Visitor

We were waiting for friends to arrive for dinner when the doorbell rang. I swung the door wide, expecting them, but it was a man who drops in once every couple of years, whom I’ll call Abraham. I invited him in, but I was wary. He can be amusing, but once he gets settled he’s hard to dislodge. He wants to talk, in a mumbling stream which is almost impossible to cut into, even to answer the occasional question. He loves gossip, and always arrives with some. On the other hand, he also wants to collect something to take to his next stopping-place. He’s like a bumblebee, picking up pollen here and depositing it there.

Abraham is a Syrian Christian from Kerala. I like the sound of Malayalam, though I can’t understand it: it is closely related to Tamil, but it has a softness and a lilt that Tamil does not. I also like the way some Malayalis, Abraham for example, speak English. The ‘o’s are especially elongated – phone becomes phwu-ooooone, and the lilting rhythm is soothing.

Abraham sat looking down at his lap, his body rocking very slightly. His shirt looked as though it hadn’t been ironed, though he can certainly afford to have it done. He started right in with a flow of words, as though we had met last week, not a year ago. He’d sold his house in Chennai to a computer company. One crore [a lot of money] per ground [about 1/16 of an acre, I think], and he had nine grounds of land. “I just have to settle up with my nephew. But I’m only going to pay him two and a half crores, because he doesn’t like me.” He smiled. “Then I’ll go and stay in my house in Coonoor. It’s a big house, and I like the view.

"C just took an old bathtub from me. An old-fashioned thing it was, and very dirty. He'll have to clean it with acid before he can use it. He’s having liver trouble, his stomach's all bloated up. He says he's stopped drinking: he only takes wine now." Abraham paused long enough to look up for the first time, and laughed slightly. “Wine won’t help him, but I didn’t say anything. I don’t want to be too friendly with him, because I’m afraid he’ll come and visit me in Coonoor. Anyway, I asked him if he was planning to come to Coonoor, but he said, ‘I can’t, my teeth are gone, and I have to spend all my time at the dentist.’”

C is very wealthy. Why did he want Abraham’s dirty old bathtub? Did it have any connection with his liver trouble? I tried to ask, but he wouldn’t let me interrupt him. And at last he bumbled off to the next flower, just in time for our friends to arrive.

From The Onion:

New Tech-Support Caste Arises In India

NEW DELHI—Thanks to widespread outsourcing of telephone-service jobs, a sixth caste has blossomed in India: the Khidakayas, a mid-level jati made up of technical-support workers. "I am happy to be a Khidakaya," said technical-support agent Ranji Prasat, who speaks English with a flawless American accent and goes by the name "Ron" at work. "While we rank below members of the reigning order, those of us responsible for helping Americans track their online purchases and change their account PINs share many privileges not enjoyed by the merchant class below us." Prasat said he expects to marry another tech-support worker.

Errands and Such

I went to the post office and stood in line at the stamp window, which was surrounded with several hand-written signs, all of which read "Revenue Stamps No Stock."

Bought my stamps, posted my letter in the postbox by the door.

In the Department of Insignificant Things, it's a disaster when your tongue cleaner breaks, and you realise you don't have any more, and being absent-minded you keep forgetting to buy new ones, and your tongue feels ickier and ickier, until you start using old credit cards, etc. Today I finally managed to get to a fancy store, which is where you have to go to buy them. (A fancy store sells oddments -- 'fancies,' I suppose -- small things that other places don't sell, impossible to describe -- a complete miscellany.) And bought 30, skewered together with a safety pin. And a roll of cloth tape for nadas, the drawstrings of pajamas and petticoats and such.

And then I bought groceries, and had some xeroxing done, and rented two DVD's: the new Alfie, and The Motorcycle Diaries.

And we're having biryani for dinner tonight, with raita and ready-made makhani dal -- very exotic for us, not at all our usual simplified-Gujarati fare. In the Department of Insignificant Things, it's a pretty good day.

Update: Dinesh's interesting comment: In my line of work [entomology], the fancy store was invaluable. I often found myself using stuff from there in my field work. For example, I used those garish neon ribbons (the ones school girls use to tie their braids) in order to mark spider colonies. It was quite a sight to see. And here's a link re: the postboxes: The Indian PO

Chapati Mystery has an interesting post on the origin of the Hindi word vilayat, which is popularly believed to have been derived from Blighty, a slangy name for England. It seems that in fact, it's the other way around.

Blogday

under the fire star is two years old today. I haven't been giving it much care and feeding lately, but it seems to be a survivor.


Three days ago we ate our first mango of the season, an undistinguished specimen which Mary bought from the fruit lady who pushes her cart past our gate every day. Yesterday I went out and bought a box of Alphonse mangoes from Maharashtra, the ultimate in mango-ness as far as this household is concerned. They're not ripe yet, but they're resting in the dark, wrapped in wood shavings, and it should be any day now.

My pattern is to gorge myself at the beginning of mango season -- mangoes in the morning, mangoes mangoes in the evening, mangoes at suppertime. After a week or so, my digestive system rebels and I can hardly look at a mango for a couple of weeks. Then, just when the season is winding down, I get panicky and feel that I've missed my chance to eat mangoes for another whole year, and I begin again. So I'm looking forward to all that.


Yesterday, the two shallow fish ponds in the atrium of our house were being cleaned, and Lakshmi called me to come and look. Chinnaraj was scooping out handfuls of black grit. Lakshmi said they were poochies, which means insects, but when I looked closely I saw that they were tiny spiralled/conical snail shells. There were thousands of them, moving sluggishly, making faint noises of foot over shell which Mary described as mulla-mulla-mulla. We drained all the water out, transferred our mud-coloured fish to the well, and left the ponds to dry out. I did some hasty Internet research, which mainly turned up aquarium snails. One site said that clarifying agents could control snails, so I sent Chinnaraj to the chemist for alum. Once in the past, when someone came around offering to clean out the well, he tied alum in a piece of cloth and threw it in to clarify the water. So let's see. In the night as we sat in the drawing-room, which opens into the atrium, we imagined an army of snails on the move out there: mulla-mulla-mulla.

Three Songs

Ramesh has been reading Talking Songs by the great Hindi lyricist Javed Akhtar. Yesterday he mentioned that, although the book includes the lyrics (and translations) for sixty of Akhtar's songs, his song Breathless wasn't there. So I rushed to the Net and found the lyrics here. They're in Hindi, but even if you can't read them, you can listen to the song here: page down to Breathless, check the box, go to the bottom of the page and click 'play selected.' It's fun -- it's a patter song, sung apparently all in one breath (which is why it's called Breathless), and the melody is a mix of western and Indian styles. Fusion, I suppose, although that's not really accurate; and it's an overused word these days.


Last night we watched Almodovar’s latest film, Bad Education. In one scene, a transvestite lip-synchs a Hindi song: "Aao huzoor tumko sitaron mein le chalo..." (film: Kismat (1968); Singer : Asha Bhosle; Music Director : O P Nayyar; Lyrics : Noor Devasi; Director : Manmohan Desai; Actors : Babita, Bishwajeet, Helen, Kamal Mehra, Murad)

We actually got into a small argument -- my fault --because I, convinced that it had to be in Spanish, refused to hear the Hindi. I kept saying, ‘but you know that so many Indian film songs have used western melodies.’ But it really was in Hindi. We wondered how that could be, and thought that perhaps this had in fact been a Spanish song first. But how had Almodovar come across it? Are Hindi film songs known in Spain? (I found an audio link to the song here, but couldn't get it to play.)

Update: Thanks to Chris Yavelow, who sent me a link to a wordless version of aao huzoor tumko. The sound is very cheesy, but kind of fun for all that.


Yesterday was Tamil New Year, and the Tamil TV channels were showing special films for the holiday. Sometime late at night we came across a showing of Michael Madana Kama Rajan, just in time for a song that I love, Sundari Neeyum. It's beautifully picturised, and sung by the actor (Kamal Hasan) who is supposed to be singing it – which is rare in Indian films, where the actors generally lip-synch songs sung by others.

In the film Kamal Hasan plays four characters, including a hilarious brahmin cook from Palghat, who speaks in a mixture of Malayam and Tamil, and who sings this song. Well, it's a duet, actually. You can listen to it here. Page down to Sundari Neeyum - 3rd from the bottom of the page, check the box and click 'play selected' -- do it! It's a lovely song.

Oh yes, and, fooling around on the Net I found this site where you can look up the ragas of Tamil film songs. The raga of Sundari Neeyum is kEdaaram.

I've been reading Alembic almost every day for about two years now -- it's beautifully written, and by a thoughtful person; exactly the kind of writing I like. Now its proprietor, Maria Benet, has published her first book of poetry, Mapmaker of Absences. One feels that people whose words one reads regularly are old friends, or distant relatives -- it's such a pleasure to read about their doings in the world.

Some Links

How odd -- I was going to post a ghazal by Mary Jo Salter, which arrived in my email as one of Knopf's daily emails for Poetry Month (April) (to subscribe, send a blank email to sub_knopfpoetry@info.randomhouse.com); but the email contained the warning: "No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher." And besides, what I wanted to say about it was that, to write ghazals in English, you really have to be Agha Shahid Ali.

And just now, in Chapati Mystery, I read this post about an impromptu English ghazal session, and the examples given are much better than Salter's. It helps to know Urdu, obviously, and the ghazal tradition; and, apparently, to be slightly drunk as well.


I saw this on Chapati Mystery too: The art of Rajkamal Kahlon. Gouache on 19th century bookpages (specifically, Cassell's Illustrated History of India).

Closer to home:

Newly-discovered Mamallapuram temple fascinates archaeologists

Reel-time blogs: An article about blogs about Tamil cinema.

The Dark

We drove to Anna Nagar, to dinner at a friend's house. It had rained for much of the day, and was still drizzling lightly. Santhome High Road was blocked off, and traffic diverted to the beach road. Santhome gets flooded quite quickly when it rains, but I was surprised, this had not happened before.

It was the first time I had driven on this stretch of the beach road since the tsunami. It runs very close to the sea, but it is not scenic: it is where the fishermen live, an extended village, squeezed between the city and the ocean. The pavement is narrow, two lanes only, and ends abruptly, without any kind of footpath on either side. Palm-thatch huts are put up very close to the road, and people live more on its edges than inside. If you drive there in the daytime, mothers are bathing children, or washing clothes, from buckets close to the car wheels; children play, people sit, or stand and talk. There are goats and chickens. The beach side is littered with nets, drying clothes, junk. For many it is the village latrine, though there are a couple of public latrines in the shape of a steamship, with a funnel.

Last night, creeping along in the dark, with no illumination but the lights of the vehicles, I could see little. At the southern end, where we entered, the place seemed as heavily populated as before. This is part of Srinivasapuram, an area which the government wants to empty out, to send the residents to its new slum clearance project in Thoraipakkam. (Thoraipakkam: my gardener comes to work from there every day with tales of criminal rule, extortion and violence, the poor preying on the poor, where the police are paid off and see nothing.)

As we drew closer to the Lighthouse, we could see big empty areas where the people had already been removed, and the place had been bulldozed into piles of rubble. But on the other side of the road, the beach side, were rows of terrible huts, just plastic sheeting on casuarina poles, and straw mats, and people's possessions. I guessed that they must have refused to be moved: the fishermen have claimed that it is their ancestral right to live by the sea. They must have been soaked in the rain.

At our friends' house, a tiny bat was hanging from a recessed light fixture in the ceiling. It had flown in through an open window. They had tried to encourage it to leave, but were afraid of hurting it. Its body was only about three inches long. It hung from one delicate foot, its wings wrapped around its body. It was swinging slightly, and shifting its wings in front of its chest, so that it looked as if it were wringing its hands in agitation. It was still there when we left, still restless.

This morning I saw in the paper that Santhome High Road was blocked off because a five-storey building, which was being renovated, had collapsed. No one was living in it, but several workers were trapped in the rubble. At least three of them were killed.

Last night the world seemed precarious, a place of darkness. Which it is, for so many. Most of the time I just don't notice.

Rain

On Sunday, at around 3:30 in the afternoon, the sky became dark. I looked out the window and saw dozens of birds speeding across the sky, carried by a stiff breeze. I went outside and stood on the steps, and waited for the rain to begin. I stretched out my hand beyond the covered area, and let the first drops fall on my skin, and felt their coolness. It hasn't rained for several months. It only lasted for about 15 minutes, but the power went off immediately, and came back when the rain stopped.

Yesterday it began at mid-morning, and rained until mid-afternoon. Lots of rumbling thunder, which I like, and the power off for hours.

This morning it's raining again -- splatting, solid. The air is saturated. The temperature has come down. It's the normal pattern here during the hot season: heat builds and builds, and then is broken by thundershowers.

I hope the power doesn't go off again, because I have a lot of work to do. The new fiscal year began on the first of April, so there are papers to be gathered for the accountant, and several taxes to be paid. I'm half-convinced that the Electricity Board sends people out to turn the power off when it rains, so that the jury-rigged electric boxes, with all their exposed wires, don't get flooded and begin to spark.

The garden changes colour immediately, as dust washes off of the leaves. Our rather ramshackle plants are lush and swaying. It's what the tropics are supposed to look like, for a change.

A new photoblog by R. Balaji, in camera, largely made up of pictures taken in Chennai and its state, Tamil Nadu. There's an amazing photograph of workers at a salt pan in Tuticorin, which looks as though they're harvesting snow.

Book Meme

Anna invited me, and I really meant to do it, but I didn't; now abdul-walid has (though he had already invited himself and three others, so I don't know if it counts). I hate these things, because I know I'm not clever enough; and yet I feel tempted. So okay.

1. You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451. Which book do you want to be?

The first thing that popped into my head was Penelope Lively's Moon Tiger. So let it remain. (But if it's taken, I'll be W. G. Sebald's The Rings of Saturn.)

2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

In childhood, many: Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard; Rudolph Rassendyl from The Prisoner of Zenda (from a collection of pulp fiction of the turn of the century, which belonged to my grandmother); the Scarlet Pimpernel. Swashbucklers all. And one horse: the Black Stallion.

Of late: Arkady Renko, from any of Martin Cruz Smith's novels through which he slouches.

3. The last book you bought is?

Shamiana: The Mughal Tent, by Shireen Akbar

4. What are you currently reading?

Orhan Pamuk's Snow, John Busby's Drawing Birds, Stephen P. Cohen's The Idea of Pakistan

5. Five books you would take to a deserted island?

How could I possibly choose?

Some enormous compendium of poetry, which might include Gerard Manley Hopkins. Mary Oliver?

Some potboiler novel that I could read to forget the island - a long one. With one of those swashbucklers from my childhood, maybe.

Maybe some science fiction? Samuel R. Delaney's Triton?

I just don't know. More poetry. The Complete Works of Jane Austen. A wilderness survival manual. The ship would sink before I could decide.

6. Who are you going to pass this to (three persons) and why?

I think I'll leave it to anyone who would like to respond. How about you?

Here's one, thank you, from Chandrachoodan. And Dinesh.

Two Links

I'm not sure what it is yet, but I know it's really cool: Global Village Health Manual

And the terrific Chapati Mystery speculates on the etymology of the word 'termagant.'

Lowest A/C Prices in History

I admit it, I'm always a sucker for these tongue-in-cheek uses of Indian mythology for product advertising.

Note: I got some interesting comments on this post.

Anand sent me a link to an article, The Invention of the Hindu, by Pankaj Mishra:

Hinduism is largely a fiction, formulated in the 18th and 19th centuries out of a multiplicity of sub-continental religions, and enthusiastically endorsed by Indian modernisers. Unlike Muslims, Hindus have tended to borrow more than reject, and it has now been reconfigured as a global rival to the big three monotheisms. In the process, it has abandoned the tradition of toleration which lie in its true origins.

And on a lighter note, Anand Vishwanathan tells me that the figure in the ad, whom I had taken to be a character from the Mahabharata, Bhima, because he is shown with a mace, is actually Kumbhakarna, a demon who was the brother of Ravana, the villain of the Ramayana, who slept for months at a time. Which makes the ad funnier than I realised.

And Partisan adds: What's even funnier, the tagline says: "Kannai Mooditu Vangalam", which means, "You can shut your eyes and buy it." Just the right pitch for a sleep-inducing air-conditioner, right?

I learn so much from everyone's comments -- thanks once again for them.